Into the Fire

Steven James is indeed a master storyteller. By trade. By profession. By calling. And this entertaining series featuring Special Agent Patrick Bowers gives this storyteller free rein to get thoroughly involved in his stories. You might recall my review of The Pawn disclosed a complicated and perhaps too ambitious plot. The Rook focused more succinctly on a primary antagonist, and a particularly creepy one at that. Now with The Knight we have a new precise, sociopathic, and convoluted killer, who calls himself “Giovanni”, orchestrating a series of crimes which end up reflecting or duplicating the events and murders from the pages of a 15th century book which was banned by the church, coinciding with the trial of a previously apprehended serial killer who asks Patrick Bowers to lie on the stand about an altercation they had at his arrest and who claims he has found Jesus.

Mixed up with these compelling and demanding circumstances are the attraction our protagonist feels for the female detective he’s working with again, his potential break-up with Lien-hua (an FBI profiler whose life he saved), his step-daughter Tessa’s reaction to her deceased mother’s diary which she begged to read and her subsequent actions, the intricate accomplishments of a killer who is always ahead of their efforts, and the eventual discovery that Patrick’s death is the final objective of this merciless murderer.

When Patrick’s boss, a female with whom he constantly feuds because of past conflicts, sends a profiler for whom he has little respect to head up this Denver investigation, Patrick pays scant attention to the cocky antics and questionable generalities he offers about the killer.

The intense journey to find the geospatial intersection between killer and victim takes almost the entire book, but when Patrick finally connects the dots, the full-speed ahead throttles up, and what has already been advancing in a steady and creepy way, explodes into rapidly repeating discovery.

Steven James created a likable, genius-type boy/man next door character in Special Agent Patrick Bowers, the thirty-plus widower trying to raise his teenaged step-daughter who at times seems older than himself. He’s yet to recover from his wife’s death, slow to re-enter the romance mode and uncomfortable in the process. Brilliant and focused during his investigations, it’s easier for him to be involved in the mayhem than in the everyday normality of life. Disinterested in God, although his mother is a Christian woman, he fights silent rage at the cruel injustices of evil people and life in general while maintaining a true sense of ethics when the rage doesn’t overpower him.

Fascinating stories with an entertaining writing style, Steven James delivers each new addition to the Patrick Bowers’ thrillers with fresh intensity, multiple conflicts, moral decisions, horrendous antagonists, and intricate details which send the reader down many dead-ends right along with Patrick until it all clicks into place for him.

The Knight takes us almost to a satisfying conclusion and then leaves us hanging on that proverbial cliff. Summer of 2010 seems much too far away and way too long to wait for The Bishop, the next Patrick Bowers thriller.

Available August 2009 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Father, I would ask your continued blessing upon Steven James. You have given him unique storytelling abilities and I pray he would always use them for your glory. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.